well, i'm around! :)

Whew!! life sure has been busy around here. School started and we're all at it! I've been helping up there as often as I can and with that, my housework and other fun things kinda go by the wayside. I really need to be better at that. :) So today I'm spending my day catching up around here and getting ready for the Kids to be out of school for a few days! They are ending their first 9 weeks and here they get a 5 day weekend! I've been working on some crochet projects and that's been fun! Well, I think the dryer is done, I better go fold some stuff...I'll check back in later. There are so many things I want to share with you all! :)

new menu

so this week there was a groupon for emeals.com for a 12 month subscription for $30. I wasn't willing to pay $60 for it before but I could go for the $30. what is does, if you've never heard of it before, is it sets your dinners for a week and does the grocery list too. it's all printable, and ready to go once a week! that saves me HOURS!! We choose the Gluten Free -Wal-mart plan. I was going to go with the any store, but hubs said " why not just do the Wal-mart. then you can tell if you need to go there just in case it's cheaper there" So that's what we did.

This is our first week on it. tonight's dinner, "Firecraker Chicken" with Italian pasta. Well, I opted to do their cheesy GF pasta in stead of the Italian. Dinner was served. It was yummy! the chicken is great!! the noodles were yummy too!

This is going to be a fun time as we adjust to this and try out the new meals!! :D I'm looking forward to this falling together and seeing how we like it!

First Day of School!!

today is our first day of school for this school year!!! :) for lunch today I made the girls crepes with nutella and banana, a trail mix of peanuts, raisins and chocolate chips, orange jello, a gogurt (frozen when they took it) and a water bottle with mio in it!! :) can't wait to hear how their day was!
The boy had a half day and he did GREAT!!! he came home and had the same lunch and he loved it!! He can't wait till tomorrow for more school!! :) I'm glad! i'm very glad that he is enjoying it and doing good!! Off I go to finish the house work today and get a few more things done before i go pick up the girls!!!

AHHHH!! the weekend!!

As I sit here on Friday morning, I'm thinking of my weekend. we have a birthday party for one of the sweetest ladies I know!!  I'm soo excited! She's a wonderful lady and I'm going to be so happy to get to celebrate her! :D The only problem I have is, as everyone knows, we are gluten free and there will be birthday cake! Now it will be an ice cream cake, but still it makes me nervous. My kids will so want to eat it. I'm really hoping that there won't be a bit fight. Then comes Sun. We are getting geared up for the first day of school this year! :) This will be the first year all of the kids will be in school!! I'm excited and sad at the same time...more about that later. :( only 14 more days!!! here we go for another wonderful and exciting fast paced weekend!! :)

SCHOOL!!

AH! we only have 2.5 weeks till school starts. The girls will both be at school all day. That means I have to send them lunch every day! OH the joy!! Last year I would send them sandwiches. How you ask? i'll tell you! :) we did either peanut butter or Nutella on Rice Cakes. Oh, they LOVED them!! they boy too. (I let him have them at home most days too) I want to do a few different things this next year. I'm thinking, we'll do some of those, and some lunch meat rolls with skinny cow cheese (or the off brand) spread in the middle! plenty of veggies and fruit. I sent juice boxes last year, but i think we'll be doing water this year. I'm to the point I need to make a plan and get ready! The girls already have their backpacks and lunch boxes. They boy needs to get his backpack and the the school supplies!! Oh this is going to be an interesting year! :)

WOW!!

Soo I was reminded I needed to update my blog! :) Here's the low down for what's been going on. :) We've stayed Gluten free and have done wonderful! The kids have so much more energy and they are really enjoying life. All of them are a better  size for their age. Pinkie has been putting on weight, she's always been skinny for her age. and a little small. I'd say she's gained about 5-7 pounds in the last 6 months. She was really underweight for her age, now she's about average (maybe still a little under). Which takes a load off my mind! :) Then we come to JJ! OH how she is growing and maturing! :) She makes me smile with her attitude, well most of the time. She's growing well, and adjusting to your new life. Then we get to the Boy!! OH!! wow!! he's growing soo much! :D He'll be 4 in a little over a month now. And will be starting Pre-K half day this fall (in just over 2 weeks!!). He's had a hard time with the gluten free as some of his favorite foods (cookies and crackers) are no longer allowed. It's usually good at home, but when we are out, especially at friends houses, it gets more difficult.

The Mr. and I decided to try a Paleo diet for the summer. At first we did a 30 day Challenge, then we went back to adding some other foods in. And this week, we are going back to a more Paleo diet. So I'm sure you first question is "What is Paleo?" Oh, it' sounds confusing at first but really it simple. All you eat is meat, Fruits, Veggies, Nuts, Seeds. No Grains (this includes corn). No Dairy. No Legumes (this includes Peanuts). OH at first i was VERY worried and anxious. Then Mr. went...Hun! chill!! it's meat and veggies and fruit! burgers, steak, chicken...we got this!! :) I love that man! and sure enough we made the challenge. I wasn't easy!! I had to give up the creamer for my coffee. and if you know me at all, you KNOW how i feel about my coffee! LOL! Lets just say I better have my coffee to start the day or it doesn't get started!! :) The biggest modification we are going to the Paleo is i am keeping my creamer!! And we're going to be doing some dairy in our foods. We'll also be doing some rice a few days a week. On the Challenge i lost 11 lbs. in about 4 weeks. then the 2 weeks off I gained back about 4. <sigh> I bought a stationary bike off of one of friends and have been using it. :) Soo here we go on the attempt to get more healthy! :D

That's about all for us! We're doing great, learning and getting more healthy!

oooh!

So I've been trying to make some bread recently. It's been going fairly well. I found some flour I really like. it's by Better Batter. It's simple to use and can be put in any recipe I want! The only problem I've had is that it doesn't wash very well in the dishwasher. But that's ok. I can do it. It's worth it! :) It cooks up great! and it tastes good! Everything falls though. sigh..that's ok.  The kids enjoy it! So it's nice to have bread again. It's work but yeah it's good!
We've also found that we don't enjoy the Garbanzo bean or Fava Bean flours. So I know to avoid those now too. It makes things easier  for finding things we'll enjoy! :) It's been a interesting learning experience. The kids are adjusting GREAT! Mr and I not quite so well. But that's ok. We've only had a few times that Mr has been "glutened" some have been his fault, once mine, and one time we couldn't figure it out (he thought maybe he'd been sick already).
Recently I have been making the kid's sandwiches on big rice cakes. They like the plain ones with peanut butter or Nutella, the chocolate ones with peanut butter. This next week they'll be trying the Cinnamon Apple ones with either Peanut Butter or Nutella probably some of each. The Boy sure does like them! :) that makes me happy! :)

Whew!

i just realized it's been almost 20 days since i blogged! LOL! well, i had a med change and whew i went a bit crazy! (just ask the MR.!) i'm on better meds now so it's much better :) and food is becoming more and more of a success around here! the kids are enjoying the new foods, we're finding our favorites and our not so wonderfuls! :)

We have been trying some of the premixed gluten free flours (just so it's a bit easier on me) and i have found i don't like the taste of the fava bean or garbonza bean flours. But i have found a flour that's perfect for us! and i can use it anywhere i need to! :) makes me happy and we are doing great! just me and my crazy showing! i'll have to update with some more pictures soon!

Oh and thanks to my wonderful SIL, I found out that Mazzio's Italian Eatery (or pizza place) is starting to have gluten free pizzas! I'm so happy and excited! I really do hope that they do a good job! we'd love to be able to eat out at one of our favorite places to eat! :) woot! Here's me hoping i'll get a break from cooking some night soon! :)

more success! It's always nice!

So tonight for dinner I made Chili Cheese Fries. Not that healthy but it was OSU in the Fiesta Bowl so we wanted some football food! LOL! Yeah we're football nuts! :) It was GREAT! the kids kept coming back for more and more fries! LOL! Till we ran out! But that's good, b/c they haven't wanted to eat a whole lot with this change! Then once they went to bed, I made MR. some Gluten Free Rice Krispie Treats! :) hehe! sooo...here you go! :)

Chili:

I use the Shelby Chili mix. It's in a box and REALLY easy! We've used it for years and were very happy to find that it was still available to us! :) They use Masa Flour, which is corn based!

It calls for 2 lbs of ground beef, but I use 1 lb ground turkey, 1 lb pork sasage (sometimes I use turkey). brown the meat, add the seasoning packets like you want to (I use the big packet, salt packet, and cayenne pepper packet). 1 8oz can of tomato sauce (I've used tomato paste and it's good too, just thicker) (oh i use salt free so I can control the salt content). mix bring to a boil. lower heat. simmer for 15 minutes! (don't worry all the instructions are on the back of the box of seasoning!) :)

Potatos:

I use just whatever potato on sale. Wash, cut into strips, and fry it up! I used my fry daddy with canola oil! When you pull them out  let them drain a bit and season them...

Plate it up!  Fries, Chili, Cheese. That's it for me! The Boy doesn't like chili so he gets just cheese! Pinkie and JJ get just a smiggen of chili and cheese. Mr likes bacon and sour cream.

Rice Krispies...i followed the directions on the box....except...i used marshmallow creme instead of marshmallows! (haha!)

So today is great! :)

and we're up?

I think I connected this to my Google+ account. At least I hope I did! :) We're testing it now! :)

Just a big smile!

So a sweet wonderful friend of mine sent me one of those cookbooks you find at the checkout counter for gluten free cooking. I finally broke it out today and made the waffles in it. WOW they were so good! :) Mr. said he was worried when he smelled them cooking as they just didn't smell right. BUT when he ate them they MAY have been better than regular waffles! :) makes me happy! everyone went back for more! next time I'll have to double or triple the recipe!  and freeze some for the kids for school morning breakfasts! This next week as the kids go back to school and Mr goes back to work, we'll be sticking with the diet and also the girls will be taking their lunches. We're going to test them on the gluten free and see if there is a change in them. As Pinkie was complaining about tummy pain today, but with all the possible places she could have gotten stuff we don't know that that's her issue. We'll just have to see! and hope all goes well! :)

SIGH! yeah it's a big sigh

So I havn't been really strict with the kids staying on the gluten free diet. I worry that each of them have Celiac like Mr., but really didn't want to limit them. Mr. has been off work (on vacation) since right before Christmas. So we've been mostly gluten free at home. Pinkie went to a friend's for a few hours one day and she came home and complained about her tummy hurting (about in the same spots that Mr does with he's having an attack! Sooo..i think she'll need to be tested. Previously the Boy has had issues with dairy, but with him not on the gluten free diet that seems to have disapeared. So he needs to be tested. So that's 2 of 3...might as well test JJ too!

My anxiety has been less while on the diet and I do notice it spikes when I've had gluten. So i think i'll just have us all tested. I'm fairly sure at least 2 of us have it. sigh...sooooo OK... we can do this!

And Happy New Year everyone!!! :D